champs Josh Blanchard and Logan Kennedy

Josh Blanchard, Fresno CA, and Logan Kennedy, Las Vegas, captured $1,000 scholarships each as champions of the JBT Mojave Conference Invitational, held at Gold Coast.  A tremendous $7,540 was awarded to a 77 qualifier field.

33 scratch and 44 scratch qualifiers battled for 16 finals spots in each division, where bowlers competed in grueling triple-elimination matchplay the rest of the day.  In the scratch division, upsets were the name of the day in matchplay, as top seed Kyle King, #3 Brandon Allred, #4 Christian Jensen, and #5 Jeremy Medina were all eliminated by round four.  

In round six, 8 bowlers remained.  In those matches, Blanchard handed #16 Bill Grant his second loss, #2 Kevin Saunders eliminated #12 Eddie Schaub, #11 Cayson Coyle eliminated #9 DJ Sloan, and #15 Brandon Watts ousted #13 Andy Reynoso.

In round seven, the undefeated Blanchard earned a bye, while Saunders eliminated Grant, and Coyle eliminated Watts.  In round eight, it was Cayson's turn for a much-needed bye, while Blanchard handed Kevin loss #2.  Then, with three bowlers still remaining, Saunders enjoyed a second bye, while Saunders eliminated Coyle, setting up a title match situation where Saunders would have to beat Blanchard three straight times to swipe the title away.

Blanchard had only bowled one game under 200 on the demanding conditions all day, but picked a bad time for the second, as Kevin won game one 224-180.  In game two, a very well-bowled contest had neither bowler taking more than a one-pin lead until Sauders' double in the 8th and ninth.  But a tenth frame nine-count gave Blanchard a chance to double in the tenth for the win, and the veteran cane through with the hits for a 207-206 win, and his eleventh JBT title.

In the handicap finals, the top seeds struggled as well, with #1 Josh Chefalo, #3 Troy Graydon, and #5 Donovan Koff all out quickly.  Only #2 Mike May stuck around a long time, but he fell in round six to #13 Kennedy.  In other round six matches, #15 Sean Huggins handed #10 Sean Caliebe his first loss, #16 Dan Hansen ended #6 Alicia Sullivan's day, and #8 Kyle Bridgman eliminated #4 Drew Stern.

In round seven, Caliebe enjoyed a bye, while Kennedy handed Huggins loss #2, and Hansen eliminated Bridgman.  In round eight, Huggins eliminated Hansen, while Kennedy pushed Caliebe to the brink with his second loss.  Now with three bowlers left, Kennedy got the bye, while Huggins eliminated Caliebe, setting up a finale where Huggins would have to beat Logan in two straight to win the tournament.

Kennedy, who has a knack of coming up big in big events, wanted none of the second match, coming on strong at the end of game one for the win and the title, the second of his JBT career.

Everybody go tell poor Bryce Gross to cheer up- in one of the worst bad luck cases despite great bowling we've ever seen, he missed the finals cut by just one pin, and then missed being the Last Chance winner by just 4 pins-- yeeeouch!

Thanks as always to Gold Coast for a top-notch job hosting our events.   Please spread the word about everything JBT does that you won't find anywhere else, keep up to date all summer on bowljbt.com, and we'll see you at our summer events, or in September for the start of the 2007-08 Mojave Conference season!